Predicting The Unpredictable Parents-to-be Plan Baby's Sex

November 6, 1986|By Moira Bailey of The Sentinel Staff

A Colorado company has followed the format of popular at-home pregnancy tests and added a new twist -- the possibility of choosing a baby's sex. The Gender Choice ''kit,'' however, contains no chemicals or gadgetry -- simply information designed to help couples plot ovulation and time sexual intercourse to better their chances of having a boy or a girl.

The kit, according to its critics, contains nothing more than the age-old rhythm method in a new wrapper. Ethicists say effectiveness isn't the issue: They worry that over-the-counter sex selection may become standard procedure in the near future.

ProCare Industries Ltd. introduced Gender Choice in mid-August and one month later launched an advertising campaign through women's and parenting magazines. The product, not yet available locally, sells for $40 to $50, comes in pink and blue boxes and promises to ''help choose the sex of your next child -- naturally.'' The company offers no guarantees but predicts a success rate of up to 85 percent. Under normal circumstances, the odds slightly favor boys -- 106 males are born for every 100 females, according to Princeton University's Office of Population Research.

Gender Choice kits offer not so much new technology as a new approach. The kit includes information on predicting ovulation and includes disposable thermometers designed to chart changes in basal body temperature.

There also is information on timing and specific positions in sexual intercourse -- aimed at creating an environment more conducive to sperm carrying either X (female) or Y (male) chromosomes.

The information is based on research done during the past 20 years -- specifically the work of Dr. Landrum Shettles, who outlined the procedures in a 1970 book, Your Baby's Sex: Now You Can Choose.

ProCare introduced its product, however, before the Food and Drug Administration reviewed the application, according to an FDA spokesman. A representative of Eckerd Drugs' Clearwater headquarters said last week that the company's order has been delayed pending FDA approval.

''They have a concern that our product should be classified as a medical device,'' said ProCare representative Monica Crandell. ''We did not believe it was a medical device.''

Meanwhile, doctors are hesitant to give the product a yes or no vote. ''There is no medical study that supports the supposition that timing during ovulation can affect the sex of the child,'' said Laurie Hall, public information officer for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The makers of at-home pregnancy tests haven't followed suit in gender selection. An official with Tambrands, makers of the First Response at-home pregnancy test, said the company would not consider marketing gender-selection kits because ''the technology is not available.'' A representative for Ortho Pharmaceuticals, maker of the Ovutime (an ovulation-predictor test) and Advance (pregnancy test) kits, said the company has no plans to develop a gender-selection product.

Until now, the available options for selecting a baby's gender have been limited and expensive. Dr. Ronald Ericsson pioneered clinics specializing in sperm separation -- a method of filtering sperm to produce a concentration of X or Y sperm cells. A New Orleans baby boy in August became what doctors claimed was the first in-vitro sex-selected child. The attending physician didn't specify a price tag but was quoted as saying ''the cost and inconvenience'' would rule out the in-vitro procedure for most people.

Still, the unpredictability of sex-selection techniques hasn't stymied interest in the idea. A marketing survey conducted for ProCare indicated 20 percent of first-time parents would use a gender-selection product. Two-thirds of parents who have at least one child and are planning more said they would use the product. So far, the company has reported an equal buyer preference for boys' and girls' kits.

Regardless of what parents may want, some medical ethicists worry about the implications of widespread and affordable gender-selection techniques. Joan Straumanis, dean of faculty at Rollins College, has long been speaking out about the moral and ethical implications of easy gender selection.

''What the kits do, in my opinion, is prey on people's great desire to control the sex of their offspring,'' said Straumanis. While she doesn't think the kits work, Straumanis said ''that doesn't relieve us of the moral problem, because I think we're on the verge of having things that do work.''

Straumanis said ProCare is ''tapping into a phenomenon that's worldwide,'' a preference -- less obvious in Western societies than in Eastern countries -- for boys. Straumanis said studies have indicated most U.S. couples would select the sex of their children ''if there were a cheap and easy method of determining the sex of their baby.'' And she thinks most parents would prefer a boy as a first child.